Public transportation vehicles, such as buses, require a convenient and reliable way for passengers to pay their fare with tokens or coins. Coins with reeded edges—such as the U.S. dime, quarter, half dollar, and some dollar coins—can wedge with other coins when multiple coins are dropped at the same time into a coin receptacle.
In some present coin receptacles, it is often difficult to loosen coins wedged together in coin receptacles. At the very least, it takes time for a public transportation patron to clear the jammed coins. A severe jam, however, could require the assistance of a public transportation system employee to clear the jam. If the coin receptacle is located on a bus, the likely public transportation system employee to clear the jam would be the bus driver. Clearing the jammed coins would take the bus driver's attention away from other duties. Thus, a jammed coin receptacle potentially could result in delays.
Even in the best circumstance, when coins repeatedly jam in a coin receptacle and can be loosened by the public transportation patron, the average time it takes for a passenger to board the bus increases. Generally, as the average time necessary for a passenger to board a bus increases, the transportation authority must increase the time between scheduled stops to allow for all passengers to board the bus. This unnecessary waste of time needed to board a bus means either that people will have to wait longer at a bus stop for a bus than necessary, or that the transportation authority will have to put additional buses into service on each route in order to reduce the wait for a bus.
The average number of passengers that use a bus on any given day is monitored by the transportation authority. By determining both the average number of passengers that frequent a particular bus line, and the average time for a passenger to board a bus, the transportation authority can create an accurate bus schedule. Any decrease in the average time for a passenger to board the bus would reduce the time needed for a bus to wait at any one stop. In addition, a substantial reduction in the average time needed to board a bus could result in a decrease in the number of busses needed on a route because busses could make a complete circuit faster than before. These unneeded busses could then be placed on other routes that may be presently underserved.
During other high volume times at a particular stop—such as after a sporting event—the extra time needed for each passenger to board the bus could result in substantial departure delays. When a large number of people wish to board the bus at one particular stop, this departure delay could cause the bus to fall behind a schedule that did not take into account the increased volume of passengers.
Waiting for a bus for an extended period of time in inclement weather is inconvenient to the public transportation patron, and purchasing additional vehicles in order to maintain a standard of service is costly for the transportation authority. It would simply be easier to reduce the average amount of time necessary for a person to board a public transportation vehicle.
Accordingly, it is desirable to provide an apparatus and method that helps reduces coin jams and also provides for easy clearing of the coin receptacle in the event that coins do jam in it in order to decrease the average amount of time necessary for a person to board a public transportation vehicle.